‘Shoot To Kill’ Policies
Undermine Democracies

By William Finucane

London police spotted this guy and were immediately suspicious.

What made them feel this way is immaterial.

It is presumed by virtually all non-white people worldwide that it was one thing that made the police suspicious – the suspect was dark.

They called to him.

He ran.

Bad, bad move.

Police ran after him, into the subway.

Into a subway car they followed.

And there, when officers had him surrounded, they took target practice on his head. One bullet hit his shoulder. Seven others hit his head. The young man was instantly dead.

And all the people knew one thing for certain: he died because he was not white. As it turned out, that was the only reason he was dead; because the London police followed their instincts and killed him and asked questions later.

Turns out he was a Brazilian named Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, in England on an improper passport.

What has happened since then has been strange and chilling.

Of course this happened in the aftermath of the July 7 (2005) bombing in which four English citizens of non-white color blew apart underground trains and a two-deck bus, killing more than 50 Londoners, including themselves. More men failed attempt to repeat the act two weeks later. So there was loads of tension.

London Police Chief Ian Blair put it this way: "I think we are quite comfortable that the policy is right, but of course these are fantastically difficult times." Here here; quite so; quite true; stiff upper lip; carry on; but under no circumstances will we apologize. Blair is not a callous man, he even allows that young men who want to be Muslims have every right to do so. And that plays well with London whites.

But it falls flat on black ears.

What did catch the ears of everyone was the revelation that this was a whole new way of finding and treating British bombers.

This was the Shoot to Kill policy. It came from Israel. Yes Israel.

There were some substantive changes necessary to implement the Shoot to Kill program. Foremost, police had to carry guns. For years, London police did not carry guns. No, even during the height of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) bombings did London cops carry guns. But now some police carry guns.

Not only that, but they are trained to shoot the suspect in the head.

Why?

So they will be unable to trigger any bomb they might be carrying.

This will probably change, since a new bomb triggering device is in all likelihood being fabricated that goes off if the suicide bomber gets shot in the head and falls, etc.

But for right now, go for the head, then, and be accurate.

Judging from the de Menezes instance, the London cops learned their lessons well. No questions, even when they had him cornered in a train car unable to escape. No hesitation, none at all, as the eight rounds killed him instantly.

Osama bin Laden must have been cheering somewhere, in that safe haven that he apparently has found and where we cannot seem to find him.

Remember, it was a group of Englishmen who blew up the underground.

And Englishmen are standing tall telling everyone they will fight this enemy like the Blitzkrieg in World War II. Maybe so.

A tiny island nation that stood up to Hitler in the 1930s and 1940s and actually won deserves unparalleled respect. Now they are battling against terrorism.

Well, now there’s a new term going around in America’s White House.

"Violent extremism" is the phrase now.

That new term is the latest verbal attempt of the American president, George W. Bush, to run away from the term "terrorist."

That is because "terrorists" cannot be defeated in any conventional manner.

That is not a sign of sudden Western weakness.

By definition, a "terrorist" group is not an army. Calling "terrorism" the main enemy is playing squarely into the hands of suicidal murderers.

Every terrorist know this.

They have known it since terrorism began. It’s a given.

Finally, Bush sees the syntactical inadequacy of "terrorists" and has steered to the astonishingly ugly but much more realistic phrase, "violent extremism." So Britain is now fighting "violent extremism."

In a immensely ironic twist, one historic piece of the puzzle of "violent extremism" leaped from the woodwork after the London bombings and suddenly tossed down its arms; the Irish Republican Army suddenly announced it was disarming.

For decades, the IRA fought tooth and nail against London in efforts aimed at making Northern Ireland part of the Irish Republic. There were some hopeful signs in the past decade that the IRA might give up its guns and take a peaceful approach. In the end, however, the IRA just couldn’t come to the point of giving up their guns. So there was a standoff in negotiations.

That is, until this July, right after the de Menezes killing.

With breathtaking speed, the IRA threw down its guns and announced it would use only peaceful, democratic methods to pursue its goals. What?

The fierce, never-say-never Irish rebels who had decided to keep their firearms after long, difficult negotiations were now – summarily – forsaking their weapons, perhaps the very symbols of their manhood, and announcing that henceforth they will be using only words to make their point without bloodshed?

Yes.

Why?

Was it another move like that of Libyan leader Colonel Khadafi, who put all his dictatorship’s nuclear war plans in the wastebasket and made nice with Bush overnight?

That was a clear, undisputed victory for Bush.

Is the IRA doing the same thing?

Apparently the answer is yes, it is.

Doesn’t matter what explanation one follows, the historical facts tell the tale.

History moves of its own on tectonic plates of time and events and if political organizations decide to make a move that is in unison with those movements, then its movement is powered by history. So the IRA decision falls in the same category.

It is part of a much larger piece of history.

Now, if the IRA members are to be true to their promise to seek improvement through peace, the members ought to think about offering the London police some inside information on how, where, with what explosives and when the current bombers are likely to strike, based on its own experiences.

London police would be foolish not to ask for that insight. In fact, that might go a long way toward building some true feeling of brotherhood among the two former enemies. And that would be good.

But history serves as a backdrop to this white-white repatriation and it still looms, just as overpowering as ever. That broader history is pitting the West against violent extremists in the Middle East.

It is not a black-white struggle – although phrasing it in that way makes it easier for fundamentalists to recruit more young people to their camp. And it makes it much easier for Middle East zealots to sign up dark skinned youths when London cops wrongfully put seven bullets in a dark man’s head and fail to even apologize.

Reacting to a vicious enemy, and the fascist Muslim fanatics are as vicious as any recorded by history, by becoming like the enemy is to forfeit the values that make democracies different from the totalitarian and fascist minded regimes of the world, and the killers that they spawn. The ‘shoot to kill’ policy should be revised.